What's the Score? --- Part 2

While the world waits, the score of the Louis Vuitton Cup best-of-whatever semifinal series between Seattle's OneWorld and Italy's Prada remains a mystery.

Each side has won a race, but that's not what counts. OneWorld had to cough up its opening win as part of the penalty imposed by the America's Cup Arbitration Panel, so after Prada came from behind to win Tuesday it could be assumed that Prada's lead was 1-0.

Louis Vuitton media chief Bruno Troublé was asked at Tuesday's post-race press conference, "The score now is 1-0, is it?"

Troublé: "We don’t know."

It could be 2-0. The issue continued to hang on an appeal a day earlier by Challenger series regatta director Dyer Jones, who asked the arb panel, now scattered around the world, to review its ruling and award OneWorld's win to Prada---in effect, doubling the penalty.

Poor Troublé could only attempt to explain, "We know that [the Challenger of Record Committee] applied to the panel. It doesn’t make much difference at this stage, but we will need to know soon whether it’s one point less, or one point to Prada."

Yeah, "soon," like Thursday (Friday in New Zealand). If Prada already leads 2-0, it needs only two more wins on the water in the five remaining races.

Kiwis Outsiders In Their Own Land

Was last weekend's arb panel hearings on OneWorld open or closed? Depends on one's point of view. Brian Rudman, a newsside columnist for the New Zealand Herald, which is Auckland's leading daily newspaper, wrote today:

"I'm more than a little put out that when this week's bad boys from OneWorld Challenge were made to parade their dirty laundry in the open, my colleague Helen Tunnah and other New Zealand journalists were banned from the proceedings.

"Instead . . . we had to make do with the second-hand reports from an American news agency, an Italian journalist with limited English and a public relations flack from the Louis Vuitton bag empire . . . who was keen to put a positive spin on the whole affair. Even more upsetting is the fact that Team New Zealand, who expect our undying loyalty in the defender series, endorsed the ban on New Zealand journalists.

"New York Yacht Club Commodore Charles A. Dana III declared his club, which had helped to bring the case, cared greatly for 'the integrity of the America's Cup.' Conducting a genuinely public trial would have been a good first step to doing that.

"The people who made the decision were the organizing committee made up of representatives of the nine challenging syndicates, in consultation with Team New Zealand and Louis Vuitton flack Marcus Hutchinson. In the end, we're just colorful natives providing a convenient venue for big boys' games."

Spinmeisters At Work

Each team produces a press releasing following a day's racing and it's fun to note the different slants. The big issue Tuesday was OneWorld's failure to cover Prada on the last upwind leg.

OneWorld reported: "On the final leg Prada profited from a shift and gained the advantage . . ."

From Prada: "Luna Rossa attacks with a series of tacks and plays well the frequent wind shifts, with Torben Grael calling the tactics. Towards the end of the leg Francesco de Angelis, on the port layline, takes the lead . . ."

No mention from either camp that OneWorld had opened a door as wide as the Hauraki Gulf.

Then there was Oracle BMW, which went down 0-2 against Alinghi: "The experienced afterguard aboard SUI-64 kept a tight cover on Oracle BMW Racing, offering no passing opportunities in the highly variable wind range."

Translation: the Swiss Kiwis sailed faster.

McKee Gets the Third Degree

The heat was truly on OneWorld tactician Charlie McKee at the press conference. Most of the reporters try to phrase their questions gently, but it was clear that OneWorld bungled by not covering Prada and they all wanted to know: Why not?

McKee, a double Olympic medallist and one of only two Americans on the Seattle boat, knew what was coming.

"Charlie," came the first soft salvo, "it’s easy for us to criticize when we watch on TV, but . . . why did you give so much freedom to Luna Rossa today?"

McKee, who had spent much of the day up the mast studying wind patterns, replied: "We were sailing pretty loose today. We felt the conditions justified that. It was very puffy and shifty so that even if a boat was relatively close to you they could be in quite different wind. We got our lead basically by playing the wind well and we definitely made a mistake on the last beat and didn’t shift into closer covering mode. But given our young history with them, them having passed us twice on the downwinds yesterday, we weren’t that keen to have them ramming right on our stern as well."

McKee's counterpart, Prada tactician Torben Grael, was on the AC hot seat himself in 2000 for the same transgression: not covering the opponent to protect a lead.

Grael said, "We’d had many splits before with them and many of them went well to their side so I think they felt confident in what they were doing. As trailing boat we couldn’t do anything else but go for the shifts we thought were right. We did that and it went our way on the last beat, but it didn’t go our way for a lot of the race. Now it’s very easy to say they made a mistake, but it’s not very easy to make the decision when you’re sailing."

That probably satisfied most media, but one pressed for more clarification.

McKee was patient and honest: "In retrospect, clearly what we did was a mistake. If I had to characterize the big picture for you I would say if the boat behind is always choosing when to tack and gybe, and the boat ahead is always responding, and the boat behind is filled with a bunch of smart sailors, then the boat behind is going to tend to make gains because they’re making the choices.

"So as the boat ahead you are letting your lead erode in order to protect your position. The shiftier it gets, the more likely you are to try and make gains because a one- or two-boat length lead at the top mark is potentially not going to be enough, whereas in a steady wind it more than likely is going to be enough. So, there’s the theory."

Any more questions?

Hanging In There

McKee also was asked about the effects on the crew of the OneWorld controversy off the water, especially the latest confusion in the scoring.

He said, "From my perspective, the words written on the paper were pretty clear that we were starting at minus-one. But regardless, we’re early in a long series against a very tough opponent. Whatever the other shenanigans that have gone on that might be surprising to some of us who aren’t America’s Cup veterans, ultimately it’s still a sailboat race and we’re looking to sail well and win more races than they do.

"The mood in the camp is fine. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t shocked the other day and we were left reeling a little bit. But from the sailing team’s point of view, we have been through lots of adversity before."